In My Head


Tuesday, November 22, 2005
This week, I find myself slowly descending into the cold panic that always comes with planning and preparing an Important Meal for more than just Brian and me.

All my recipes are neatly clipped together and hanging on the refrigerator. I made the brine for the turkey on Sunday evening. I also put together the cranberry-orange compote (with Grand Marnier, mmmm) and it's still sitting in the blender, also chilling in the fridge.

Tonight: I am going to assemble the ingredients for the green bean and sweet potato casseroles, and refrigerate them, uncooked. I am also going to bake one of the two desserts for the big day: Paula Deen's Gooey Pumpkin Butter Cake. I did a test run last week, since I'd never made it before, and it came out pretty good.

Tomorrow morning, I am going to the farm in Spring City where my fresh turkey is awaiting me. Tomorrow night, I will bake the apple pie.

Still, even though I know I am somewhat on top of the game, I get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about Thursday. That is because I have two less-than-perfect Thanksgivings under my belt.

I hosted Thanksgiving in the first year of our marriage. We'd only been married two months, and I'd never cooked a turkey before in my life. My mother told me not to buy a whole turkey, since there would only be five of us at dinner, but to instead get a turkey breast. Sounded good to me. So I wandered the aisles of my local Giant supermarket, peering in the freezer wells, in search of this elusive cut of bird. Finally, I came across a frozen Butterball, about the size and shape of a regulation football, whose label read: Boneless Breast of Turkey. This must be it, I thought. I can do this!

So on the big day, I stuck the thing in my roasting pan and baked it per the label instructions. My parents and grandmother arrived just as I was pulling it out of the oven. My mother came into the kitchen and asked if I needed any help.

"Oh, no," I assured her, "I've got it all under control."

Then I took the lid off the roasting pan. She glanced at my roast and said, ever so tactfully, "What the hell is that thing?"

I blinked. "I thought you told me to get a turkey breast instead of the whole bird," I reminded her.

She said, "Lori...that's not what I was talking about...that's a rolled turkey with white meat and dark meat. You got the wrong thing!"

Oh, the horror. And she was right! None of my family eats dark meat, and I was mortified when I saw that my little football roast yielded about five slices of white meat. I didn't even have a taste of any turkey that day, because I wanted to make sure that everyone else had some for themselves.

The following year, I decided to buy a whole, frozen bird. How can you mess that up, I thought.

I thought wrong, my friends. You see, there's a little bag of goodies inside that big cavity...that I completely bypassed and DID NOT REMOVE prior to roasting the turkey. Like some kind of wacked-out version of Groundhog Day, my mother swanned into the kitchen again just as I pulled the roaster from the oven. She asked, as customary, "Is there anything I can do to help you here?"

This time, I replied, "Yeah...let the turkey rest for a while, then carve it up."

Half an hour later, she picked up the carving knife and went for broke. She didn't get very far into it, though, when she suddenly cried out, "LORI! You didn't take the giblets out of the cavity!" I watched as her hand snaked into the innards of the bird, and my jaw dropped as she yanked out the bag, still frozen solid. Well, duh. Using an instant-read thermometer, we learned that the roast wasn't even cooked through. So back into the oven it went, for another HOUR. Sheesh. By the time I put it out on the table, everyone had already finished all of the side dishes.

So this year, I've decided that I am most definitely due for a good turkey. Third time's the charm, isn't that how the saying goes?

Feel free to share any or all of your Thanksgiving disasters here...if not just to make me feel better!

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Posted by Lori at 11/22/2005 05:28:00 PM |
Monday, November 21, 2005
For the past week or so, I have had a vicious, stabbing pain just under my right shoulder blade. It impedes my movement and forces me to sit and move in unnatural ways.

Unfortunately, this pain is not new. It comes and goes during stressful periods in my life. In fact, I call it my "stress knot." It is like a tiny, hard lump of muscle bunching up under my right scapula. I've been asking Brian every ten minutes to press firmly on the sore area with his fingers. This provides me momentary relief, although it is accompanied by a searing, cringeworthy tenderness that makes me yelp out loud as he massages it. Also, I've been sleeping with a heating pad under my back for the past two nights, and I have noticed an improvement upon waking in the morning. But as I get up and get on with my day, the pain returns with a vengeance.

Since I arrived at work this morning, I've been frantically Googling in my quest to find a more permanent solution to this agony. Aside from seeing a massage therapist, I couldn't seem to find any immediate answers to my problem. Then I remembered: yoga.

I had been a faithful yoga practitioner for about two years during my engagement and the first year of our marriage. For reasons which I will disclose in another post, I was going through more than just the typical stress of planning our wedding. I was also trying to tone up a bit for the big day, so I began taking yoga classes, in tandem with weightlifting and a serious walking program. I had always thought that yoga was some kind of new-agey, foo-foo type of activity, but I really liked it and the benefits were measurable and positive. In fact, I'm not really sure why I stopped doing yoga. I should probably pick it up again.

ANYWAY...I sat here in my cubicle, thinking of all the asanas (poses) I knew that might release some of the tightness in my back and shoulders. There exists a basic asana that nevertheless has always been just out of reach for me, even when I was practicing yoga regularly: reverse namaste, or Pascimanamaskarasana, its Sanskrit name. This asana requires you to reach both arms behind you, and bring the palms together upright behind the back, as if praying. It has always challenged me, perhaps due to my naturally tight shoulders and rotator cuffs.

But I am desperate, so I decided to give it a shot, as best as I could here in my chair. I couldn't quite get my palms to meet, but I was able to clasp my fingers together and hold it for a few minutes, breathing deeply. As I unwound my arms, I took another deep breath and noticed (gleefully!) that my shoulder pain was dramatically diminished. So I tried it once more and got the same result. The terrible stabbing pain has been reduced to a dull ache.

If anyone else has any suggestions for me, have at 'em. I am willing to entertain anything!

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Posted by Lori at 11/21/2005 10:23:00 AM |
Wednesday, November 16, 2005

I usually don't talk much about local, national, or international news or issues here, but I am compelled to write about the double homicide that occurred this past Sunday morning in a quiet suburb of Lancaster, PA -- which is just a little over 30 minutes' drive from my house. I have been thinking about it almost every other minute since it happened.

I was en route to the supermarket on Sunday afternoon when an Amber Alert interrupted the broadcast of the radio station I was listening to in the car. A 14 year-old was reported abducted from her home following the murder of her parents. The Amber Alert did not give any other details at the time, except for the suspect's vehicle description and license number. I remember being a little shocked about it...the area where this all happened is almost bucolic, right in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country.

Apparently, this 14 year-old (Kara Borden) was secretly seeing 18 year-old David Ludwig, despite her parents' disapproval. Both kids hailed from very Christian families, and both were home-schooled. It appears that they had a physical relationship. From the accounts I've been following online, it appears that she told her parents that she was sleeping over a girlfriend's house on Saturday night, but was actually with him instead.

He dropped her off at her home on Sunday morning at 6 a.m. and left. Then her parents found out she was truly with David, not her girlfriend, so they called him and told him to come back to the house to discuss their relationship. Sometime between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., David Ludwig shot Mr. and Mrs. Borden each once in the head, grabbed Kara, and took off.

Was it premeditated? I don't know. From his Xanga blog, it appears he was an avid deer hunter. But why would he have brought a firearm into the home of his secret girlfriend's parents?

Did she participate in the killings, or is she a victim of the situation? Who knows. I was reading her Xanga blog yesterday (it has since been shut down) and it appears she was like any other girl in her early teens. From her posts, it seemed that she loved her family, though she alluded to some troubles she'd been going through several times. She also mentioned she'd been grounded once or twice.

I just wish I could figure out what was going through that kid's head when he made the decision to kill her parents. The first thing that popped into my mind upon hearing the news was that this was like a Romeo/Juliet thing, except instead of suicide, Romeo killed the Capulets (I know I'm weird).

Then I started thinking that maybe she is/was pregnant with his child. There was a conversation posted in her MySpace blog between her and an older (18) girlfriend that makes me think something deeper than just a covert relationship was going on between Kara and David.

Of course, all this led me to reminisce about my own teenage years. I myself was having sex at age 14 -- but my boyfriend was also 14, not 18. I don't regret anything I've done, but it strikes me that I could've potentially found myself in the same situation. I used to sneak some of my boyfriends into my bedroom in the middle of the night. I used to lie about my age so that I could talk to older guys. To me, this is all just typical teenage behavior.

Is it realistic to expect teenagers to abstain from sex? I don't think so, though I realize many people feel differently about it. If Kara felt that she didn't have to hide this relationship from her parents, would this tragedy still have happened? I'm not sure. From all accounts, David Ludwig has been painted as a nice, polite, normal 18 year-old kid. What switch was flipped inside his head to cause him to do this?

Maybe we'll never know.

So tragic.

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Posted by Lori at 11/16/2005 03:25:00 PM |
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
As my period winds down for this month, I’ve been thinking more about my PMS, and PMS in general. I guess I don’t have anything better to do. Anyway, I’ve been trying to figure out why it seems that my PMS, specifically the emotional symptoms, has gotten progressively worse as I’ve gotten older.

I got my first period at age 10 (pretty early, I know). Throughout my teenage years, I don’t think I truly experienced any kind of hormonal swings based on my menstrual cycle. Of course, I always had physical symptoms, like break-outs on my face and especially horrendous cramps that caused me to miss a few days of school nearly every month. Heck, I’d even admit to the odd carbohydrate craving. But I never felt the craziness that I always heard about from TV, books, or from older women. I started to believe that PMS was either a figment of the imagination, or a complete fabrication to excuse occasional bitchiness.

However, in the past four or five years, I have come around and am now an ardent believer in PMS. And it’s gotten worse over the years, not better. There have been a few times during which I have come disturbingly close to convincing myself that killing my husband in a fit of rage over some oversight on his part (loading the dishwasher the “wrong way” or failing to turn on the outside house light when he gets home before me at night) could be deemed justifiable homicide. I have had terrible outbursts over seemingly inconsequential matters during some of my PMS weeks. This past week, Brian did something that otherwise would have only mildly annoyed me, but my initial reaction was to shriek “I want a divorce!” Ahem. Guess my hormones are getting their revenge on me now, for my earlier disbelief in their power.

The thing that surprises me about all this is that I have been on birth control for over ten years, and I thought that the Pill would have a more regulatory effect on my hormones. But I suppose that’s an incorrect assumption.

So I was chatting about this topic over the weekend with my cousin, who is only a year younger than I. She, too, has noticed a shift in her own emotional stability during the dreaded PMS week. She suggested that I talk to my doctor about taking an anti-depressant only during that one week out of each month.

Now, not to get all Tom Cruise on you, dear readers, but I’ve been down the Paxil road before, and while I agree it has its place…I don’t think it’s necessarily the answer to my PMS problems. First of all, most Ads take several weeks, if not months, to kick in. So it wouldn’t make much sense to only take it for a week each month. Also, I spent about six months on Paxil in 2003 for a mild panic problem I was experiencing at the time, and I gained about 15 pounds. Even while exercising regularly and eating less. Yikes. You think that PMS bloat is bad? Try the AD weight gain! Sure, my panic went away, but I had to buy a whole new wardrobe, and I hated getting naked in front of Brian knowing I was heavier. Talk about depressing. I had no sex life and had to drop a wad of cash on new, bigger clothes. Gah.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll just have to deal with the demons for a few days each month, while repeating to myself, “It’s just PMS, it’s just PMS…I don’t really want to divorce Brian, it’s just PMS…” Fortunately, Brian knows me well enough at this point that he understands he must keep his distance during those times. Poor guy. I guess it’s just that self-preservation instinct kicking in.

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Posted by Lori at 11/15/2005 04:53:00 PM |
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
I got some Chinese takeout for lunch today, and just read my fortune:

"You are interested in public service."

Damn, that's pretty good. As goofy and irreverent as I appear, I take community service extremely seriously. I think it's important for everyone to get out there and do some good for free and with no expectations.

In high school and college, I tutored younger kids in English and Spanish for free. I was also a candystriper at our local hospital (quit snickering, you dirty birds!).

My last gig was taking care of homeless cats, but it became too emotionally exhausting for me. I would show up at the shelter every Monday night, do my job, then leave in tears.

So I've been without a volunteer role for about a year now, and I've been itching to get back into the game. I've been toying with the idea of volunteering with Habitat for Humanity. I'm fairly handy and I think I might enjoy doing the work. I've looked into my local chapter, and it appears that all I'd need to do is just show up at the site in work clothes and with a bagged lunch on any given Saturday. Seems easy enough.

I'd like to hear about your volunteer experiences. What have you done, and was it a good or bad experience for you?

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Posted by Lori at 11/09/2005 11:56:00 AM |
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
I am pleased to report that Donnie was a VERY goooood boy this weekend! Although he is a rather exuberant 14-month old Chessie (who weighs about 90 lbs), he didn't have any accidents in the house, only chewed on his own designated toys, and stayed off the furniture. He was pretty quiet, too, and only whimpered a little bit when we crated him at bedtime.

The weather here was gorgeous and uncharacteristically warm over the weekend, so we took Donnie for a nice long hike at Valley Forge National Park. As we were walking, Brian commented, "You know, this is kind of fun..."

Also, when Donnie's owner came on Sunday afternoon to take him home, Brian told him, "If you ever need anyone to dogsit again, we'll be happy to do it. He was a good boy!"

This bodes very well for my chances of convincing Brian to get a dog in the spring. Yippee!

Anyway, this is PMS Week, which means that I've pretty much strapped on the feed bag. Have you ever had ice cream from Coldstone Creamery? WOW. It is so rich and delicious that it takes me at least two days to eat even the smallest size serving. My favorite flavor is Cake Batter with cookie dough mixed in, though I sampled Carrot Cake yesterday and was impressed.

This coming weekend, Brian is flying to Pittsburgh to meet up with his buddies and go to the Steelers game on Sunday. I am kind of looking forward to having the house all to myself. That means that I can watch the Food Network and HGTV exclusively without hearing any grumbling! The World Series of Poker will not even have one minute's airtime in the house for three whole days! And no sticky fingerprints all over the kitchen counters and refrigerator door! I swear, the man is 33 years old but sometimes I feel like he's my kid. I'm constantly cleaning up after him. Gah.

Hope everyone had as nice and fun a weekend as I! Tell me what you did...

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Posted by Lori at 11/08/2005 10:54:00 AM |
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Well, tomorrow is the big day. We're dog-sitting Brian's friend's Chesapeake Bay retriever this weekend. After work tomorrow, I'm going to pick him up and bring him back to our house.

It was my extremely fervent hope that Donnie (the dog--named after Don Mattingly, the former New York Yankees team captain) behaves himself. If he is an exemplary dog this weekend, it can only increase my chances of convincing Brian that we, too, need a dog.

Isn't it unusual that the wife (me) has to convince the husband (him) to get a dog? I thought it was normally the other way around. But no. Brian's never had a dog in his life. None of his family has ever owned dogs, or been owned by dogs, as the case usually is. This kind of blows my mind. They are cat people. They think that dogs are wild, smell bad, and make a mess of the house. Which may be somewhat true, but to me the cost/benefit analysis is clearly in favor of canine companionship.

Don't get me wrong; I love cats, too. In general, I am a total animal person. I'd have birds, rats, and a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig if I were allowed to. And we have two fabulous male kitties whom I just adore...but even they don't fulfill my need for a more intense human/animal bond.

A dog would make me ever so happy. I'd even do all the work involved in taking care of it without complaint. It would be MY dog.

We've been married just over three years, and for 2.9 of those years, I've been subtly, and sometimes not-so-subtly, trying to get my way in this matter. I don’t ask for much. I’m not a nag. Brian plays golf, softball, poker and bowls in a weekly league, all without complaint from me. As a wife, I think I’m pretty darn cool. But I’m alone a lot, because of his extracurriculars. So why can’t I get a dog to keep me company? Sigh…

I witnessed something about a month ago that just broke my heart. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, my mother and I were driving to Target to do some shopping. We were in my car, and I was taking a shortcut through a residential neighborhood. A very wealthy neighborhood, in fact. We were chatting and laughing, and suddenly I noticed something on the side of the road, up ahead in the distance. I shushed my mom and slowed down, and what I saw next nearly made me burst into tears.

There on the side of this road, next to what I would have to imagine was a $500,000 home, stood an adult Siberian husky. It had a thick rope tied around its neck, and on the other end of the rope was an empty plastic water jug. Also attached to the rope was a sign that read "Take Me." The dog stood there, in the gutter, looking lost and confused and sad. I don’t know if the owner of the $500,00 house had put the dog out there, or if someone who had driven by just pushed it out of their car.

I stopped the car and pulled over to the opposite side of the road. My mother said, “You’re not going to get out of the car, are you? You don’t know if that dog is vicious!” The only reason I did not get out of the car and go to the dog was because she was with me. Had I been alone, I would’ve tried to get the dog into my car and taken it home with me. Instead, I called 911 – okay, I’ll admit it was probably overkill, but I was absolutely distraught and couldn’t think of anything else to do. I certainly wasn’t going to leave this animal on the side of the road to be hit by a car.

After I informed the 911 dispatcher of the situation (who thought I was a wee bit crazy, no doubt), I pulled away and continued to Target, at my mother’s insistence. I’m pretty disappointed in myself for doing that. I should have at least stayed in my car where I was, just to keep an eye on that dog until the cops or the Humane Society came to take it to safety. But my mother, who does not share the level of passion I have for animals, was becoming impatient, so I felt it was best for me to go.

We ran our errands and as I headed for hom, I turned up the street where the dog had been. My mother said, “I knew you’d go back to check on that dog.” We passed the spot where it had stood, and it was gone. I’ll never know if it wandered off on its own, or if the police truly cared enough to come and get it.

The whole point of my story is this: why is it that some people who couldn’t care less about dogs and treat them as a disposable entity are ALLOWED to have them…and I want one so very badly and would love it to pieces, but am not “allowed” to have it? It makes me so angry. Grrr. Oh, I suppose I could just stop at the shelter one day and bring one home, but that would really upset Brian, and I don’t think it would be worth the ensuing arguments.

So instead, I’m slowly chinking away at his willpower. Because I cannot see living the rest of my life dog-free. Any ideas?

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Posted by Lori at 11/03/2005 09:35:00 AM |
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
No, this post doesn't have anything to do with Thanksgiving, though I'm already stressing about that...

This morning, on my way to work, I was nearly accosted by a turkey.

You read that right. A turkey!

I see this bird occasionally when I take Brian's "secret" way to work (aka, the back roads through a rural part of Chester County). He told me about it before but I never believed him, mostly because he said to watch out for the big bird. He didn't know it was a turkey.

I saw it for the first time a few weeks ago and almost died laughing. It's one of the ugliest things I've ever seen! But it is GINORMOUS. It really is a big bird. Usually it just hangs out on the side of this tiny, one-lane road I take, next to a very old farmhouse. I guess it's someone's pet. I think its owner lets it out in the morning to take a walk. This strikes me as hilarious, for some reason.

Anyway, like most of us in the Philadelphia region, it was having a bad morning today, but not because of the SEPTA strike. When I turned down this little, narrow road, I noticed a line of cars at the far end of the lane. This struck me as odd, since it's normally a very deserted road. Then I got up to the corner and found out why there was a backup.

This turkey decided to plant itself in the middle of the road. It waddled precariously to and fro, allowing one car at a time to pass it. Of course, when I got to the head of the line, it stopped moving and just stood there, staring directly at me. I honked my horn, hoping to frighten it off the road, but it didn't even ruffle this turkey's feathers (pun intended). Then I rolled down my window and tried to verbally shoo it away. None of my attempts got even the smallest reaction from this bird.

I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw a line of cars idling behind me. So I decided to take a more aggressive course of action. I put my car in Park, opened the door, and walked around to the front of my car. The turkey stood about 10 feet from me. I did my own version of a turkey dance, or at least what I would imagine a turkey dance to be, while saying, "Shoo, shoo, shoo..."
The turkey just looked at me. I know these things aren't known for their high IQs, but I swear that this particular bird knew exactly what it was doing. As it watched me do my little dance, it let out a high-pitched gobble at me IN DEFIANCE...

Then it lunged at me.

Man, those birds can move! For such an ungainly-looking creature, it covered a lot of distance very quickly. I squealed and jumped back into my car. Just as I slammed the door, it began pecking on my driver's window. If I had been just a moment slower, my ass would've been taking that pecking!

So this Thanksgiving, as I sink my teeth into that delicious bird, I will have a new respect for the turkey.

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Posted by Lori at 11/02/2005 03:41:00 PM |

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